The End of Bold Critique

A month ago, a friend of mine had a baby.  I'm happily included in a cluster of folk who bring meals and coo at the fresh human.  The women in that circle compare birth narratives ("...well I was in labor for twenty hours...," "...like pushing a watermelon through a straw...," "...one kid right after another, like a Pez dispenser..." and so on).  And many of them — seldom in the new mother's presence, mind you — say some variation of this:  "Wow, she looks good; she's lost nearly all her baby weight."

It's clear that women (yes, even in this enlightened age) value certain standards of weight loss and ideals of figure.  But they dare not encourage it.  They can no longer ask each other "So, when did you think you might lose those last five or six pounds?"  These women are not Philistines.  Many are educated "crunchy moms" who read and share articles about home delivery, organic foods, and gender empowerment.  They envision and work for a world free from privilege and discrimination.

Syllabus Memories

Jorge Cham at phdcomics.com

I never saw a syllabus in high school.  On the first day of any grading period, I had no idea where we’d be on the last.  Some of the better teachers wrote the day’s topic on the board.  But in general, our knowledge of any future beyond that was limited to the next assignment (printed in a corner of the board under the words “Do Not Erase”).  If the class were governed by policies unique to the teacher, they were conveyed by word of mouth.  These usually had to do with the proper use of unwieldy bathroom passes or returning scissors to a shoebox covered in contact paper.

Then came college and the syllabus – an unfamiliar Latin scripture in which each teacher declared himself god.  Office hours defined the time/space boundaries of his universe. A grading scale enumerated sins and their respective punishments.  A calendar prophesied the future.

Why Colleges Can't Stop Rape

The law of unintended consequences:  Is Jeanne Clery the reason university presidents
can't stop rape?

MILESTONES IN CAMPUS RAPE  (The sad story so far…)

• 1957. American Sociological Review publishes Clifford Kirkpatrick and Eugene Kanin’s “Male Sex Aggression on a University Campus.”  Their article claims/predicts that college men use secrecy and stigma to pressure women in sexual situations. 
• 1986.  Jeanne Clery is raped and murdered in her dorm room.  She is a freshman at Lehigh University, an idyllic campus she and her parents had fallen in love with.  Though  Jeanne is initially interested in Tulane, she settles on the Pennsylvania school because it “feels safer.”